Iceheart
by Kovva
Summary: Based on the fairytale The Snow Queen. Sam must save a strangely coldhearted Danny from the farthest reaches of the ghost zone. [hiatus or rewrite because it's long, and IMHO, boring.]
1. Prologue

Few know, and fewer care that a whole other dimension exists apart from our own. It is called the _ghost zone_, and ghosts are exactly what inhabit it.

For a long time, they had been mostly separate, apart from the occasional haunting when they were able to get into our world through natural portals – rips in the very fabric of time – that formed once in a while. Ghosts would come through, while a roughly equal number of humans would go through as well, balancing the equation. Famous examples of that is the case of the Roanoke colony, or the Bermuda Triangle. Those missing are now obviously in the ghost zone, while the invading ghosts are either banished by ghostbuster types or fade away from being in our world too long.

It was this way for a long time, until one world's knowledge of itself advanced so far that artificial portals could be opened and kept open for more than a natural duration. Inevitably, the worlds would touch at these points, and it was just another fatal step to the irrevocable consequence: the beginning of the war of the worlds. When two cultures mix, it's never smooth sailing.

Danny Fenton could tell you that firsthand. His parents were the ones that pioneered the ghost portal – an artificial "wormhole" to a new world. One day, being clumsy and curious (normal for a 14-year old boy), he ventured into the thing and was zapped with thousands of volts of electricity and ectoplasm at the same time. It was a wonder he ever woke up, but when he did, he found himself uniquely gifted with the powers of a ghost, and the ability to transform into one. He was a hybrid, a halfa, a half-ghost: the product of the merging of two worlds. As of now, a total of three, including Danny, exist.

Yet another step to the end, but would destiny declare Danny to be the one to save both worlds?

Ever since then, with his parents' portal still open half the time, he puts his ghost power to good use flying around and catching the rogue ghosts, to be returned to their half of the universe.

One ghost Danny remembers catching vividly is named Penelope Spectra. It was a drawn-out battle between her cutting words and his own feelings of despair and helplessness, but in the end he learned her secret and was able to capture her. Spectra had the unique ability to absorb human despair and turn it into a virtual facelift for her ghostly self. Of course, she was very good at putting people down in order to achieve her ends. She was sort of like a dementor in a way, except for her ageless attractiveness when she was disguised as a human.

Our story begins as Spectra is floating in the ghost zone, simmering over her latest experience of being caught and released, like paltry game fish. Hovering near the corresponding entrance to the Fenton's portal, she considered re-entering and getting some more human grief and worry – it was like a drug to her. She could feel her skin sagging – or was it just her imagination?

A bronze gleam caught her eye in the middle of the swirling green and black atmosphere so typical of the ghost zone. She turned to see an ornately carved mirror just floating near her, but she wasn't surprised – weird things floated past all the time. Gravity didn't always apply here. She grabbed it, marveling at its craftsmanship. Ice-blue crystals adorned its bronze edges, with a large crystal set in the handle. She ran her painted claws over it and gasped: the crystals were as sharp and hard as diamonds.

Then she looked at her beautiful self in the mirror and screamed. She thought her skin was sagging a bit, but this was hyperbole! An wrinkled, warted, beak-nosed old woman she barely recognized looked out at her, so ugly she couldn't bear to gaze at _it_ closely. But she saw enough to realize it was her (she had those same sunglasses!), horribly distorted in the mirror. What kind of mirror was this, that returned a reflection to terrible to look at?

She didn't care how beautiful the mirror itself was; she couldn't stand this insult. In a fit of temper, she threw the mirror at the portal's metal wall, thinking it would shatter, but at that moment, it opened and it went through – into the human plane!

Spectra had seen enough. Anywhere any piece of that mirror was, she wasn't going. She sped away from the place, letting her legs merge into a spectral tail, trying to erase the horrible image from her mind.

If the portal had stayed closed, a lot of grief and hardship could have been avoided. Unfortunately, there was someone in the lab where the portal was at that moment. Danny Fenton was the one who had opened the portal. He was just going to release the Box Ghost into the ghost zone for the third time today. It had been a long day, obviously. He brushed raven bangs away from his blue eyes and sighed loudly. Automatically, he pushed the Fenton Thermos into its release device and pressed the button to open the portal. The mirror shot through the gap and exploded on the floor.

There was a flash of blue light and the pungent smell of smoke as the large crystal on the handle broke, and small glass specks and shards of the glass flew everywhere. It was unavoidable that some of it would hit Danny – one glass speck flew into his eye, and one straight to his heart.

The pain hit immediately, and Danny cried out.

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_Heya! Umm, this is like a prologue. From here on, it'll all be told from different characters, mostly Sam. Next chapter it'll be Tucker though. What do you think so far? Does it convey the setting? PLEASE REVIEW and tell me, I won't ask for them in future chapters:)_


	2. Tucker: Something's not right

**1: Tucker**

I heard a cry from the lab basement. It had to be Danny – but he sounded like he was in real pain. I hoped it was just his own clumsiness and not a malevolent ghost fresh from the portal. "Sam!" I called to my friend across the room, knowing she'd follow, and started to rush down the stairs. Indeed, she followed close behind, her boots clomping noisily after me.

I stopped so suddenly at the bottom of the staircase Sam bumped into me. There was bluish glass and pieces of bronze material all over the floor, an acrid smell of smoke, and Danny hunched over near a table, moaning softly and tentatively touching his eye. I was too shocked for words, but Sam peeked over my shoulder and said, "Danny?"

"Don't touch the glass..." he muttered. He took a moment to compose himself, then grabbed a Fenton Thermos from the table and activated it. He aimed at the mess on the floor, and somehow, it all was sucked into the thermos with a satisfying whoosh. It usually didn't work on mirrors, whatever it was...

"You okay, man?" I asked. Danny seemed to shudder, then dropped his hands to his sides. "Yeah, I feel fine now, but just a minute ago it hurt like anything." He seemed puzzled.

"What happened?" Sam cried, stepping in front of me.

Danny stared at the thermos in his hand before answering. "I was releasing the box ghost...and this mirror flew in through the portal, broke on the floor, and a piece got in my eye and right here," he said, motioning to his heart. "But it doesn't hurt at all anymore, anywhere," he added, when Sam made to come closer to examine the spots.

I was skeptical. If it came out of the ghost zone, it couldn't be good. What's more, the thermos sucked it in, which meant it had some ghostly connection. Even worse, pieces of it were _in_ Danny now. Maybe it was okay for half-ghosts to have ghostly shrapnel embedded in them, but I was still worried. The smell still lingered in the air. What kind of mirror smokes when it shatters, anyway?

Sam said something about intangibility, and Danny demonstrated by sticking his hand in his chest and it came out clean. No glass shard in there. I hovered by the stairway, just watching and thinking. How could a glass shard like that just disappear into him?

Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe if the thermos hadn't sucked it up, it would have just disintegrated completely, like the stuff in Danny seemed to have done.

But I know from physics mass can neither be created nor destroyed.

Mentally, I threw up my hands. In another dimension, the laws of physics are probably totally different. What did I know of logic in their world? What happens when those two worlds clash? Danny Phantom, of course. But just even the smell of the lingering, pungent smoke convinced me something was not all right with the world at the moment.

Danny passed by me, climbing the staircase back to the living area. "C'mon, let's finish our homework," in a bored tone. I followed Sam up, uneasy and brooding, yet trying to distract myself from those thoughts.

That was a memorable Friday. The weekend that followed was a rare one; we didn't hang out the whole time, so I couldn't keep an eye on Danny. At least I didn't hear anything weird about him from anyone. I tried to relax, but still felt there was trouble ahead.

On Monday morning, we met Danny outside his house as usual to walk to school, but he seemed cold, distant, and distracted. He replied to our greetings with single syllables and didn't look us in the eye. Instead, he stared at the sky and buildings with a hard glint in his eye, as if the invisible glass speck was reflecting the light. I stole a look at Sam to gauge her reaction. She herself was stealing a look at Danny, a worried look on her face – an almost abandoned look. She met my gaze for a second, and I could read her apprehension and even fear of this Danny.

He walked alone, ahead, and we were just little mosquitoes hovering about him. We let him go faster than us, while Sam and I stayed back and continued in silent communion. He didn't even seem to notice or care.

Part of me dismissed Danny's cold-shouldering us as a Monday morning mood, but I knew it wasn't so...


	3. Sam: Watching and worrying

**2: Sam**

There was silence on the streets at the moment, except for the sound of our boots scuffing the ground. It was peaceful, in a way, but not a happy one. Not while Danny was up ahead, uncommunicative and cold. The rumble of an engine broke the spell. A car pulled up beside us on the sidewalk: It was Jazz.

"Hey, you two. Want a ride to school?" she called.

"Uh, sure," Tucker said, glancing at me. I knew what he was thinking. Leave Danny walking by himself? "Are you going to get Danny, too?" Tucker asked awkwardly.

Jazz's fake-calm expression dissolved. "That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you two about. Get in."

We complied. This morning was starting out really weird, and not in a good way. Jazz turned off the engine and twisted around in her seat so she could look at us in the back. "Danny was really acting weird this morning, wasn't he?" Jazz asked us, watching us carefully.

"Yeah." "Definitely," we chimed. I hoped we would get some answers from a relative who had spent the weekend with this guy, especially Jazz, who was observant and already quite the authority on psychology.

"Jazz, what happened?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Out of the blue, after you guys left, he started saying rude things like "your orange jumpsuit is really stupid" or "this food is disgusting". It really upset Mom and Dad, so they sent him to his room, which just made him act worse. I know it's not just a phase, and nothing I know of caused this. So I'd like you two to tell me what went on."

We froze. The mirror. The mirror?!

Tucker began the story. "We were upstairs, working on a math problem while Danny went down to the lab to release the box ghost into the ghost zone. Then I heard him shout and we went downstairs to see what happened, and there was this broken mirror all over the floor and he said a piece had gotten into his eye and chest, like right here," Tucker pointed to his chest just where Danny had shown him.

I continued. "Yeah. And he vacuumed up the mess with the Fenton Thermos! It actually worked! And then he said his eye and stuff didn't hurt anymore."

Jazz had been listening raptly. "That's insane. The thermos isn't supposed to work on stuff like broken mirrors...where'd it come from, anyway?"

"He said it came in through the portal," I supplied.

Jazz bit her lip. "Describe it."

"Well, it looked like it was once made of bronze and blue glass or something...it smelled funny when it broke...and it disappeared once it got into Danny and he couldn't find it in himself."

"It's IN Danny?"

"Yeah..." said Tucker, with shifty eyes.

"That's not good. Who knows what that could be doing to him!" Jazz cried.

"Besides making him act like a jerk?" I said, folding my arms and leaning back, the picture of coolheadedness, except inside I was really worried.

"There's something more to it, I know there is. Watch him for me, you'll see what I mean by rude..."

She started the car, and we drove slowly to school. Of course, he wasn't in the front yard waiting for us. I wasn't expecting him to. We thanked Jazz and promised to watch him for her, and of course for ourselves too. I couldn't believe some broken mirror in him could make him act that way, but if it was from the ghost zone, and was able to be vacuumed up by a thermos, it was some magical artifact or something and wasn't to be taken lightly.

Furthermore, the shards had disappeared in him. Did they dissolve into his bloodstream? Would they eventually just evaporate? Was it permanent? Was there any way to undo it?

I was thinking too deep into this. I tried to relax and stop worrying, but I couldn't. I do care deeply for him, you know. It's kind of hard not to worry or care about him.

Okay, here's the plan. I would see him in homeroom, and I would be sitting next to him. I would be able to observe perfectly fine. Maybe reason with him a bit? I can take verbal hits for a while, and I had a good vocabulary of come-backs if I so needed.

Tucker and I walked in on time to see him being mobbed by a bunch of girls _and _guys, mostly the jock type. Had he suddenly turned popular?

Based on what Jazz had told us, and the angry noises from the crowd, I doubted it.

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_Have you caught hints of danny's condition...? hint hint...("cold-shouldering" "hard glint in his eye" etc.) lol  
Bahh, I don't think my summary's the greatest. Not a lot of people seem to be reading this, so I added a "DxS" notation to the end, because it sort of is, much, much later. I dunno. :P I appreciate my four reviews so far from the last two chapters   
if you don't know what to say in a review, why not answer some questions and help me out...  
Are the chapters too long? too short? Umm...i ran out of suggestions. Thanks for reading! Paulina's POV will likely be next.  
_


	4. Sam: Ugly words

_I decided Paulina was too hard to write, because she would be too stupid to notice details I want put in. This is more than twice as long as my last! enjoy! Tucker is next._

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3: Sam

The situation was this: Tucker and I were near the doorway to the classroom, in the bottom right, if you imagine the room as a square. The crowd was in the back, about center (top middle to you). The desks were between us and the crowd. I craned to see the commotion.

Danny was standing tall and straight, facing his foes, which were the jocks, and of course Paulina and her posse. He was saying something very quietly, but very seriously: I could tell by the looks on the guys' faces. I was stunned by their range of emotions; I never knew they had more than "win" and "defeat".

The girls were watching Danny as well, with looks of outrage—or was that fear? Hate? Wariness? Paulina was front and center of the group, absentmindedly winding a lock of hair around a dainty finger, looking like a murderous beauty, but too timid to call the shots just yet. I'm guessing Danny insulted her, thanks to his new bad attitude. I'd like to cheer, but if it was his mean attitude that did that, I almost feel sorry for Paulina.

I glanced at the clock at the back of the room, above the crowd's heads. I had two minutes before class technically started. Any second now the whole football team would pile onto Danny for revenge. I lunged forward—only to have a brown arm wrap around my waist and another clamp over my mouth. So much for overprotectiveness.

"Mmmffph—Tucker!" I yelped as soon as my mouth was free. I had licked his hand, and nobody likes that. I pushed his arm off and stood facing him. "What's the big deal?"

Tucker wiped his wet hand on his cargo pants and glared at me. "First of all, _ew_. Who taught you to lick people's hands? Okay, look...Danny's not in his right mind, it's the mirror's fault, you don't want to mess with him. Now's the time to listen and learn." He motioned to me to move closer, and we carefully eased into our seats next to Danny's seat, close to the action. Actually, as we got there, the jocks receded and flowed back into their seats. I was amazed—jocks never did that until about two minutes _after_ class started. Why didn't they beat him up? What power did Danny wield over them? The girls did too, quietly leaving, for once wordless. Only Paulina and Star remained, partly because their seats were near us, and partly because Paulina was about to vent on me.

Danny was on my right, and Tucker was on his left. Paulina casually moved over to my left, away from Danny, and actually stooped to talk to me. She leaned against the empty desk next to me threateningly.

"Hey, goth geek, your _boyfriend_ was being a jerk to me. You'd better make him apologize."

That just burned me up. "First of all, _he's not my boyfriend!_ And second, I don't even know how he was being a jerk, why don't you tell me?"

"He basically said I was ugly and stupid! And that I was good for nothing! I could go on and on!" Paulina said self-righteously, and Star nodded dutifully at every insult.

I looked to my right, at Danny, who was staring straight ahead. He turned suddenly and gave me a piercing glare, which almost made me jump. I tried to ignore it, but that look was going to haunt me for a while. I think it could have broken a heart just a touch more fragile than mine. I looked past his face to Tucker, who looked up at the ceiling, signifying...I don't know what. Back to Paulina. "Well..." I said, stalling for time, but Paulina took it badly.

"You're just as bad as he is! You two deserve to be together! Loser love!" She said and stormed away. Star parroted her facial expression and left in the same way. Those girls, they're all the same, I couldn't help thinking.

Star and Paulina had perfect timing; Mr. Lancer started to call roll and I sighed deeply.

I faced forward and put my head in my hands, taking a deep breath. What to do, what to do...with Danny so hostile and not himself. The mirror was ghostly. Which friendly ghost would know about the mirror? Dora? Frostbite? Too bad our resident ghost ally was sick with a mysterious ailment that made him be excessively rude to everyone, or something like that. We couldn't go alone.

A note was pushed onto my desk, startling me from my unhappy reverie. I raised my head to look questioningly at Tucker—he had sent it, and Danny had actually passed it for him? Tucker cocked his head towards Danny. Danny?

Danny was staring straight ahead again.

I opened the note slowly, to see a drawing of some kid—the shirt and the glasses said Mikey—stuffed in a trashcan upside-down. _What?_

"Why..." I muttered out loud.

I heard stifled laughter. Was someone laughing at me?

I looked to my right: It was Danny. He had his face buried in his arms and was shaking with laughter. He looked up with a crazy grin on his face. "Isn't that funny? Isn't it?" he said hoarsely, over and over. I wanted to throw up, or cry, or scream and run out of the room. Anything to not see my Danny do that.

"This is not funny in the least!" I whisper-shouted at him.

He sobered immediately. "Of course it is." His face returned to his steely gaze so unlike the sweet boy I'd known just a weekend ago. "You know, you're not pretty at all. I hate looking at you," he said nonchalantly.

I tensed and froze. Time seemed to pause. Tucker's mouth was gaping, I noticed. I closed my open mouth as well, and my eyes too. I turned away, unwilling to let him see one tear, then another, fall onto my desk. I hid my face with my hands. I didn't learn anything that period. All I heard was Danny's voice saying those words. My makeup was probably running, but all the better—the goth-er the better. Whoever said "words can never hurt me" was wrong. Coming from my dear friend and—some call it a 'crush'—it cut deep. And he said it so normally too, like he was commenting on the day's lesson, or something stupid like that.

At the end of the class, I had made it through without being called on by Lancer. My eyes were now dry, but I still couldn't make sense of things yet. I slowly gathered my stuff with my head down all the time. We had five minutes between classes, and I was going to take my time getting to my next one. Good thing Danny had already left without so much as a goodbye.

"Sam..." he said. His voice was warm and sad.

I looked up, hoping Danny had come back for one wild moment, but I already knew from the sound it was Tucker anyway. Tucker's face was pure empathy, and I let him hug me. He's matured so much in the nearly two years since the accident...it's almost unbelievable, but here he is, in the flesh. He's still geeky, though; he still likes girls and gadgets and can't seem to choose a favorite between either of them. Good old Tucker. Maybe he isn't too far gone after all. I can always count on him. The funny thing now is that my parents aren't worrying about my friends, they're worrying about who my friends are choosing as friends (me).

I've revised my rules: no human contact unless it's Tucker or Danny. That sounds strange, doesn't it?

I sniffed and straightened up, looking for my bag, only to find Tucker holding it out to me. I had to smile at that one. "Thanks, Tuck." Slowly, he was learning to be charming, truly charming.

We walked out together, side by side, the trio down to a duo. "Give him time," he said. "I have an idea maybe it'll just wear off."

"I hope you're right," I said wistfully. "I guess time will tell." I swiped at my eyes, trying to be inconspicuous.

Tucker blew out his breath noisily. "Only good thing Danny can do at the moment, make people cry..."

"Hey!"

Tucker shrugged and stopped in the middle of the hallway. "It's true..." His somber expression turned to a grin, making a joke of it.

I stopped to consider that thought and scuffed my right boot on the linoleum floor. The smell of the hallway was especially strong today: ammonia and perfume and of course a faint scent of humanity, all mixed together. The cramped hallway was emptying, and the noise and chatter lessened. Peace. But not in my mind, thoughts of Danny's behavior, _affliction_, whatever it was, dominated. I looked up from contemplation of the floor and set my sights on my next period class, again with Tucker but thankfully without Danny. I thought I'd never think that a good thing. "No comment."

By the end of the day, Danny had been so uncooperative, so extremely disrespectful, even violent, to students and teachers alike, he had been suspended for a week and referred to the counselor's office. He left without a backward glance in 4th period, or so I heard. At least I wouldn't have to worry about avoiding him or any of that stuff. Presumably he must be at home now, terrorizing his parents, perhaps? If I think about it too much, it'll break my heart. I'll stop now.

Every teacher was puzzled as to the cause of his actions. It seemed to get worse when he was in classes without us, as if we somehow held him back just by being there. I hoped, at least. Mr. Lancer called us to his classroom near the end of 4th period via loudspeaker. Everyone stared openly at us, and I knew they were mentally labeling us as the friends of the strangely rude boy named Danny. I guess him calling us out of class was necessary. I forgave him, despite the catcalls and curious looks that annoy me so much.

Tucker and I entered the classroom and were stunned by the empty seats—it must be Mr. Lancer's free period. We stood dutifully in front of his desk, which was a mess of graded and ungraded tests, blank tests, notices, bulletins, several coffee mugs, pencils, and binders. He had thoughtfully cleared out a small area for his current coffee mug, and his large forearms. These he set upon the desk, and considered us for a moment or two. His rather thick fingers played uneasily with a broken pencil and he made to speak.

"Tucker, Sam, do you know of any trouble at home or elsewhere that could have caused Danny's behavior today? You saw him, didn't you?" asked Mr. Lancer, watching us closely.

Tucker made an unassuming face. "I don't know, Mr. Lancer." He looked at me sideways and I recognized his _are-you-thinking-what-I'm-thinking_ face. I knew; I gave him an almost imperceptible nod and blink of the eye. The mirror incident occurred in the house, and we were nearly 100 sure it made Danny like this, but how would anyone ever believe us?

Besides, I was not inclined to tell teachers anything. I'm not obliged to spill anything about Danny. I'd defend Danny to the death, but he rarely needs help. Except now...

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_what do you think of Sam getting all emotional? plausible? in character? Tucker actually maturing like that? it's fall-winter of sophmore year here. i hope i didn't mix anything up, i tend to do that in this type of chapter (hard to explain.) I did try and put more details in, more will come with the next chapter. hopefully. thanks for reading XD_


	5. Tucker: Ice powers

_I apologize for my crappy and boring last chapter. There's actually some semi-action this time and next chapter is where the crisis begins, I guess. somethin' like that.  
I know, Danny's seriously a stupidhead here. It kills me to do that. (I've been reading Catcher in the Rye) At least he -- umm --_

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4: Tucker**

At lunch, we sat outside. It would have to be one of our last outdoor lunches; winter was coming on and the cool wind whipped at Sam's hair and my dark jacket. We sat down at our usual bench, just the two of us, and it occurred to me how alone we really were without a third person. Two's company, three's a crowd, and in school a crowd was preferred. But now it couldn't be helped. We ignored the strange looks due to Danny's absence: he was like a staple during lunch, victim of food fights, and more often then most people was clumsy with his food. In ninth grade, at least, but people's memories here are like elephants'. I smiled to think of it.

For lunch, I had a delicious meaty burger, while Sam frowned as usual at my lunch and ate her salad, bread, and fruit without comment.

A shadow darted over the table, covering the cold winter sun—it was already a cloudy day. I looked up and saw Danny—Danny Phantom! Why had he come to haunt us again (excuse the pun)?

He looked...different. I squinted at him. As soon as he moved into the shadows beneath the tree, I could see the difference. Heads turned, fingers pointed, voices murmured in interest. His glow was no longer the soft, assuring white—it was a hard, piercing icy blue—the color he got when he used his ice powers. Yet he wasn't using his powers at the moment. He was just floating.

His eyes were intense, glowing the same ice blue, so unlike the sky blue they usually were in his human form, and weren't his normal neo-green ghostly ones. He hovered beneath the shade of the tree, ignoring the stares and focusing on us. What now?

"Hey Sam, hey Tucker," he said, and his voice was strange. I can't describe it. All heads turned to us. Oh, this was bad. He wasn't supposed to know us by name! We couldn't let others think there was a connection between us and Danny, or Danny and _Danny_! You know what I mean. The murmurs grew.

Sam was every bit the confused spectator. "Uhmm...hi," she said timidly, wiggling a few fingers at him. Sam acted like she had no idea who he was and why he was here.

Actually, why _was_ he here?

He smirked. I stared. So did everyone else. Especially Paulina, bless her heart, she still hasn't gotten over that idiotic crush. I remembered Danny had insulted her this morning, and here she was cooing over his alter ego. Ghost half. Whatever. I thought it was ironic.

Danny's face was pure contempt. His gaze swept out over all of us as his hands began to glow blue. I held my breath—ice powers! What was he going to do?

I took a second to glance at Sam. I'd really neglected her while I was busy gaping at Danny. She was looking at him sadly, like he'd been a bad boy and she was going to have to discipline. Unfortunately, Danny held the power here.

He started with the tree. He focused his ice powers onto it and turned it into a tree-sicle—every leaf was frosted white-blue and I knew if I even tried to lick it my tongue would be stuck. It shone beautifully in the weak sun, yet dangerous-looking: every leaf was an icy dagger. He commanded the ice with an ease I'd never seen before. As it formed from his hands, the ice was fluid yet hard, supple and sharp and cold, bitter cold. His whole body glowed suddenly, and soon the roof of the school, the fence, the grass, and the empty tables were encased in ice. The temperature immediately dropped. The crowd was speechless, either in awe of the ice or the out-of-control ghost who had done it.

Sam leaned over, as unobtrusively as possible. "Tucker, what's he doing?"

"Wreaking havoc? Doing whatever that mirror possessed him to do?" I mumbled half-heartedly. "We can't stop him. Stupid mirror."

"The mirror...the mirror...don't you think the broken crystals from the mirror looked like bluish ice? The same color as...as...Danny's eyes! Danny's glow!" her purple eyes widened even as she suggested it for the first time.

I bit my lip and glanced at Danny, comparing his strange blue glow to my fading memory of the mirror. "No way. Okay, yes way. The mirror has something to do with...what, ice?"

But Sam had turned back around to watch Danny again, who with amazing skill was carving roses, spikes, and dragon heads out of ice on the roof, completely effortlessly as best as I could see. I wonder if his skill rivaled Frostbite. But we'd never seen him, we could only rely on Danny's description of the little Danny-statue Frostbite had created with a wave of his hand. I didn't understand.

The crowd continued to watch in silence, and as some decided he wasn't going to hurt them, they began to talk amongst themselves about the ice, and Danny, and what was going to happen.

The back door burst open, and a large, balding man with a goatee stumbled down the steps. "_The Great Gatsby_! What is all this?" Mr. Lancer cried, slipping on a few stray ice-leaves and falling over. "OW! MY BACK!"

Danny paused from his work and floated down to the fallen teacher. "Hahaha," he laughed darkly. "This is the power of ice. Ice can be treacherous, yet so alluring, so beautiful. Sharp and dangerous as a double-edged sword—" here he formed one between his hands and swung it once forcefully, letting it fly into the side of the school and shatter into pieces.

The shards on the ground jogged back my memory of the broken mirror. It lay much in the same way, with the same shape and size pieces. There was no doubt in my mind now, the mirror had icy attributes. I just wanted to know how it worked. Did it come from Frostbite's world?

I had to stop theorizing and focus on the present situation; much might be learned from his words.

"—or, it can be beautiful. A lotus." He made a pass with his right hand and created a perfect lotus flower, smooth and clear as crystal. "Dangerously so," he said as he suddenly drew the edge of one of its petals across a table, and a large gash appeared in it. The flower looked to be unharmed. The crowd gasped in awe.

Danny used a bit more ice and fixed it in place on top of the gash in the table, then looked up at the students. "I can tell you people don't appreciate it. You don't appreciate the beauty and danger of ice."

The students were silent, but whispers circulated in a few tables. His eyes narrowed. He spun in a slow circle, taking in his creations, and his gaze landed on Sam, who shivered. I'm not punning now—his gaze was freezing. "I won't be back," he said slowly and quietly, then took to the sky without a second look, not even when Paulina cried out for him to stay. Still on the ground on his butt, Mr. Lancer shook his head slowly from side to side, cautiously stroking the sharp ice-grass.

I half-expected this to happen, but I wasn't sure how. My intuition has always been better than most. Soberly, I made a few quick calculations. As the crow flies, Fentonworks was right in his path.

* * *

_Now that Danny's largely out of the picture I can be nice again. no more mr. stupidhead. yay!_


	6. A NOTE and another boring chapter

**_Hello, my dear reader. _**

**I've decided to stop writing this story and perhaps delete it, because it SUCKS AND IT'S BORING. IT'S THE SIXTH CHAPTER AND SAM HASN'T GONE LOOKING FOR DANNY YET.**

**However, I promise I will rewrite, I love this story idea!**

**It might take a while. Months and months before I posted this first chapter of this I was already agonizing over how to start it. And when I finally did, it was messed up.**

**I have new ideas on how to now, but I'll have to actually write the whole thing and compare, perhaps. Shorten the beginning and stuff. And write in an omniscient third person focusing on one person's thoughts. Yessss.**

**I'm heartbroken to do this to my story, but it must be done. I may do a drabble collection, but I'm having problems starting even drabbles. Poop. I fail. I should probably focus on fanart.**

**So here below is what I got before I quit. It sucks. Trust me. IT IS SO FREAKING BORINGGGGGGGGGG and LONG WINDEDDDDDDDDD**

**Love you all!**

**Kovva**

_Send me your thoughts, questions, suggestions please? It would mean a lot to me _

His last words left me speechless, unable to utter a word even as he flew away. I was too dead in the head even to take in the sight of idiots getting their tongue stuck to the eternally cold, rock-hard ice. Crystal. Or something. I breezed through the rest of the day thinking these thoughts:

So he was a bit psycho and all, but I never imagined he would leave like that. But what were we waiting for? I think we were waiting for the effects of the mirror to just disappear, but I guess that didn't work. I don't know what we could have done. No matter how much I like him, I couldn't tolerate him like that for the rest of my life, let alone the rest of high school. Now the worst has happened, and we'll have to work really hard to fix this mess. Tucker and I, I mean. I think Danny's sort of helpless in his messed-up state.

We've got a lot of work ahead. I don't know where to start. All we have to go on is ...the mirror! I was going to say "the memory of the broken mirror", but it's probably still in one of the thermoses down in the lab!

That actually helps a lot. I thought we were hopeless for a second. Without the mirror, we would have no evidence of that incident.

Actually, my pessimistic side is kicking in. How is that thing supposed to help us find Danny? And Danny said himself he isn't coming back. Think of all the places he could hide as a ghost, far far away.

All right...Tucker said he was flying towards Fentonworks. Okay, that makes sense, I guess. Terrorize and return to the lair. But he said he wasn't coming back.

He's not the type to get himself killed.

Ice power.

Not coming back.

Fentonworks...

Basement...

Ghost portal.

Where the heck is he going in there?

It's the only logical solution.

And how are we going to get him back from a whole other dimension?

Well, there's the Specter Speeder, if the Fentons haven't cannibalized it for parts again...Danni? I doubt it...I haven't seen her forever. I'll think about it later—I also doubt the mirror will tell the whereabouts of Danny at any given time. No way that thing is a homing device.

I stopped thinking there; Tucker poked me in the shoulder in 7th period to tell me it was time to go. I smiled gratefully at him and gathered my stuff. But Tucker stared at me like I was an alien. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, sure," I said vaguely, trying to get my mind on track again for logical thinking. I'd lost my train of thought at...whereabouts of Danny, what was I thinking then?

"You smiled at me. I thought you'd be devastated...or something," he trailed off in a small voice, looking uncomfortable.

"I have hope...I have a plan of sorts." I felt really out of it. It seemed too soon to be at our lockers, but that was a plus.

"Yeah?" he said as we walked outside into a rainstorm. I didn't feel any of it—I rather like getting wet in the rain. Tucker pulled his beret farther down his head, so it covered his eyebrows, to no avail; his glasses were soon spotted with raindrops and he grudgingly stopped to wipe them clumsily on his shirttail.

"Yeah," I agreed. I told him about the probable mirror shards in a thermos, and my theory about him being in the ghost zone, and possible ways to search in it.

"I don't want to run into Walker. 95 percent of the ghosts in there are evil, seriously," Tucker complained.

"The Specter Speeder has ectoguns enough."

"And if it's not there?"

"Fat chance!" I'd already made up my mind to go with this plan: Get Danny's map, 'borrow' the Speeder, question friendly ghosts and stuff like that.

Tucker shrugged, looked at the sky, and got hit in the eye by a raindrop. "Augh!"

We decided to stop by Fentonworks first, at Tucker's insistence, to check if Danny was bluffing and had just decided to go home.

"Hi, kids!" his red-haired, purple-eyed, jump-suited mother greeted us cheerily. Her expression immediately changed to a frown. "Sorry, you can't visit him, he's grounded in his room. For a month!"

"Umm..." Tucker began, exchanging a glance with me. He crossed his fingers behind his back. When he does that, I know he's going to lie. "Can you ask him if he has my favorite...pen? I need it back." Tucker's grin was too fake. I kicked him in the ankle.

Mrs. Fenton stared down Tucker for half a minute or so. Tucker was brave. Bravo! I didn't expect you to last that long, I told him while she was off to feed Danny a lie. Tucker sighed loudly at me.

When she returned, Mrs. Fenton was really worried. It's touching to see a mother so concerned about her child. I know my mother wouldn't be. "I don't know where Danny is! He just disappeared!" _Yeah, that happens a lot, doesn't it._

"Can I...look for it in his room?" Tucker tried.

"Go ahead."

_Schweet!_

"You're smarter than I give you credit for," I muttered to him as we ran up the stairs.

"Let's gather evidence," said Tucker at the same time I suggested, "Let's get his ghost zone map."

"There is no evidence," said I.

"There is no map...oh, here it is." He handed me a large, folded piece of graph paper. I handled it gently. I don't think we thought to make a copy, or even scan it into Tucker's computer.

"There is no evidence," I said again, "that he has ghost powers or even was cut by that stupid mirror. Nothing at all, not since I took the map, and it was well hidden." Hidden under his bed, under a smelly old sock, that is. Tucker knew pretty much all of Danny's secrets, and some of them I was glad I didn't have the burden of knowing.

"Go find your pen or whatever," I ordered. "I'm just going to...sit here."

I sat on his unmade bed and contemplated his room. A poster of Explorer Hartman was tacked to the wall with care. I remembered it was about to be launched some time this year. Also on the wall were some nice pictures of planets and nebulae. An old computer monitor, assorted books, and old homework littered the floor. I lay down on my side on his bed momentarily, and his scent, not unpleasant, overwhelmed me. I smiled slightly, loving the very smell. Then I caught sight of his closet across the room.

His closet was slightly ajar. I couldn't resist. I got up (storing his scent in my mind) and stepped over Tucker, who was sprawled on the floor flipping through a sci-fi paperback, and opened the door wide. _Wow. _Shirts I had never seen him wear were in there. Boxes of something were stacked on the floor. I opened one at random and was greeted with...basically, the essence of me. A lock of my hair, one of my baby teeth (it was labeled as mine!), photos of me and him together, a black eyeliner pencil, and other strange things. I didn't know whether to be freaked out or flattered.

I tentatively sorted through the junk, so engrossed that I didn't hear Tucker sneak up behind me. I pride myself on being observant, but this discovery commanded all of my senses. "Wow, Sam, you should be flattered!" Tucker exclaimed.

"Yeah, he's such a stalker," I said sarcastically.

"Well, the eyeliner I gave to him after I decided not to go goth...and I took most of those pictures."

"Encouraging him, are you?" I replied.

I looked sadly at the stuff he had once meditated on, thinking of me alone. He had been changed, in his behavior, by something magical then too. A love spell. It was fun while it lasted. I closed his closet completely shut. "Nothing useful in there." I said quietly.

Tucker smirked but didn't pursue the subject. "Let's see if we can't sneak down to the lab..."

"What for?"

Tucker sighed. It was very much a sound of finality. "I don't know...we have the ghost zone map, we can see if they've got the Speeder ready. Otherwise, we don't have any hope. I mean, you want to go after him as soon as possible, because who knows how far he's gone already? People—ghosts—forget. I personally want to go look for him today. At least start."

Good plan. It appealed to me too. Thankfully, the Fentons weren't in the lab at the time. I heard them talking to Jazz, probably about Danny's mysterious absence/suspending.

We tiptoed down the metal stairs down into the cool basement. I kept an eye out for clues, though I doubted there would be any to where he had gone down here. The portal was open, as usual. I rolled my eyes and deactivated it, much like I would turn off lights to conserve energy. Except I was doing this so it would be harder for ghosts to get in. Tucker sat down at a bank of computers and began typing furiously. I paid him no heed until the noise of clacking keys stopped abruptly. "Sam, get over here."

I obeyed, a faint glimmer of hope rising. What had he found? I sure hadn't found the Specter Speeder.

"I've accessed the records on the ghost portal. It was opened just a few hours ago, around the end of lunchtime."

"Makes sense."

"It proves your theory correct – Danny probably did go into the ghost portal after he said he wouldn't be back."

Great...Danny's in the ghost zone and we're over here, without any mode of transportation to venture into that hostile world. Floating just doesn't cut it.

I wandered over to a thermos lying on its side on the counter and emptied it out. If it was a ghost, I could always catch it again right away, like tag-backs in Tag.

Out poured glittering blue crystal-like shards. The mirror! "Tucker!"

Tucker came running, and we knelt down carefully to look at it. Tucker produced a shard of the broken ice sword he'd picked up earlier and compared it with the mirror shards. It looked the same, in clarity and color.

Tucker began to think out loud. "If they're the same, the mirror was pretty much made of that ice stuff. If that ice stuff got into Danny, did it make him produce ice stuff instead of his normal ice, or has he always made stuff like this?"

I had a brainwave. "Or maybe it made him cold as ice...figuratively?"


End file.
